No pro baseball for Worcester next summer

Thursday

Nov 22, 2012 at 6:00 AM

Worcester will not have a baseball team at Hanover Insurance Park at Holy Cross next summer for the first time since the Tornadoes debuted in the Can-Am League in 2005. City Manager Michael V. O'Brien said yesterday that the city, Hanover Insurance and Holy Cross have decided to spend the next several months attempting to bring back baseball in 2014 — not in 2013.

By Bill Doyle TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Worcester will not have a baseball team at Hanover Insurance Park at Holy Cross next summer for the first time since the Tornadoes debuted in the Can-Am League in 2005.

City Manager Michael V. O’Brien said yesterday that the city, Hanover Insurance and Holy Cross have decided to spend the next several months attempting to bring back baseball in 2014, not 2013.

“A league, a new team and a new ownership group,” O’Brien said, “would have all had to be selected by now, lease and all agreements set, their front office would already have to be in operation, the team’s 2013 season established, tickets printed, and their sales force already on the streets for season 2013. That kind of pressure and pace does not produce diamonds.

“It would have left stones unturned and many key details missed which could create the types of structural flaws within the new team that could very well lead to failure. Not an option. Why establish a process with that high level of risk? A clean break and rock-solid due diligence and decisions by our partnership sets the proper field for 2014.”

Henry Camosse, owner of Camosse Masonry in Worcester, said yesterday he already has formed an ownership group of more than a dozen local business people and is confident his group will be admitted in 2014 to either the Can-Am League or the Atlantic League, both independent leagues in the Northeast.

Camosse said he already has spoken with both leagues and has another meeting scheduled with Can-Am League Commissioner Miles Wolff for next week. Wolf said last month that if Worcester did not field a team in 2013, the league would welcome the city back in 2014.

Camosse said he hopes his ownership group will be accepted by a professional league in the first quarter of 2013 to begin play in 2014.

With former Red Sox catcher and Worcester native Rich Gedman as manager, the Tornadoes won the Can-Am League championship in their first season in 2005, but the league stripped Tornadoes owner Todd Breighner of his membership last summer for not paying the team’s bills.

Various ownership groups, including one headed by Baltimore businessman Daniel DiGiancomo, expressed interest in fielding a team in 2013, but no agreement could be reached.

O’Brien said the city has spoken with potential ownership groups from inside and outside the area, as well as the Can-Am League, Atlantic League, and the amateur Futures Collegiate Baseball League. The city manager said an amateur team would be considered, but a professional team is preferred.

Worcester went without pro hockey for the 2005-06 season after the St. Louis Blues moved their American Hockey League team, the IceCats, to Peoria, Ill., and before the San Jose Sharks moved their AHL team here from Cleveland.

“There were a lot of hard feelings,” the city manager recalled. “There was some unfinished business and there was a push, a rush to try to put a team on the ice the next season.”

Despite some interest from the AHL and other pro and amateur leagues, the city decided to wait for the best option.

“Yeah, we had no hockey for that season,” the city manager said, “but look at the success of the Sharks. It just proves that letting the dust settle on the downfall of the Tornadoes and the closure (of the debt) of Todd Breighner and building the proper structure going forward is a recipe for success.”

O’Brien added that he hoped the Can-Am League would address the Tornadoes’ estimated $300,000 debt. Camosse said he doesn’t consider the Tornadoes’ debt a stumbling block for him.

“I believe we can put together a good, solid financial group of people,” Camosse said, “and they’ll be Worcester people that you can count on and we’ll be a brand new start-up company. So no, I don’t see it as a hurdle.”